Have A Designated Driver
by StarkBlack
Summary: Gin/Zura. Katsura is moody on a regular basis, but lately he’s been uncharacteristically down. Gin is reluctant, but being a good friend, he’s there to help.


So, here is my first ever Gintama fic. I hope you all enjoy and are not completely turned off if my characters are completely OOC. I don't think they are, maybe Katsura just a little, but meh. I want him and Gin smexing each other so slight OOC I guess has to be allowed. Thank you liralen for beta!

**Chapter 1**

"Are you sure you have the right person?"

Sakata Gintoki slouched low in his chair, his feet propped on his desk. The phone he had currently pressed against his ear was warm and was making his ear sweat. Wait, do ears sweat? Well, they had to because whenever he shifted his position he could hear a faint squishy sound. It made him want to dig wax from his opposite ear, which made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but he did it anyway.

The silver-haired samurai sat with a hot phone receiver making squishy sounds against one ear, while his free hand's pinky dug for treasure in the other. Gin briefly considered hanging up, since there was no way the man on the other end was telling the truth. And _gods damnit_ if that shrill voice didn't make him want to find a chalkboard and rake his nails down the front to give his ears a reprieve.

"Zura doesn't drink, sir," Gin muttered, "It's probably just someone who claims to be Zura. And as for my phone number, it's painted on a sign outside my door—I run my own business, you see. He could have just written it down in passing. Maybe he wants me to do something for him sometime."

The man with the eardrum-shattering voice was getting frustrated, which in turn, made his voice impossibly more shrill, consequently making Gin wish he hadn't been born.

"Sakata-san, this man is Katsura. I just saw him on TV."

_Oh yeah, that stupid interview, damn you Zura!_

"As for your phone number, he has an emergency contact card in his wallet. It reads one Sakata Gintoki, and then this number."

Gin sighed. Why Zura had him as an emergency contact, troubled him almost as much as the news that the rogue samurai had gotten himself plastered in a very public bar. If he went down there to drag his drunken ass out, no doubt the Shinsengumi would show up no more than thirty seconds later and destroy something. Gin didn't feel like getting blown up today. Things had been going well: a quick job of getting a cat out of a tree for an old lady, and a triple chocolate sundae right after dinner. He did _not_ want running from some psycho kid with a bazooka to be the last thing he did before bed.

"All right." Gin took his feet off the desk and ran a hand through his hair. "Where is your bar?"

Twenty minutes later, Gin ducked under a cloth door cover and stepped over the threshold into the small, dimly-lit establishment. It had turned out the place was deep in the Southern district, in plain sight, but tucked so far back between two larger buildings that it escaped the eye of the average passerby. That was all a nice way to say the Shinsengumi probably didn't even know it existed because they were too stupid to look that hard.

Surprisingly, it was Katsura sitting on a high stool, uncharacteristically slouched over an empty glass. Dark half-moons pooled beneath his eyes, and hard lines had made their way onto his smooth face.

His very pretty face.

How long now had Gin wanted to jump Katsura, pin him to a wall, a table, the nearest tree—some solid surface? Let's make it an even ten years and move on. Okay, so it was maybe eleven… twelve. But who was counting anyway? No one knew. No one would ever know. Gin feigned disinterest and refused to join Katsura's not-so-underground movement to keep a certain distance between the two of them. Seeing the

dark-haired beauty every day would no doubt drive Gin into a state of perpetual nosebleeds or drooling and blabbering episodes. Gin had become so incoherent around Katsura, as of late, that he had started to blame his hair when asked questions about his lack of a love-life.

Katsura seemed to sense Gin as he entered. Brown, slightly blurred eyes turned to him and the dark-haired man smiled softly.

"Gintoki," he said simply.

"Oi, oi," Gin mumbled as he slid into the seat next to his friend, "what are you doing here? Everyone knows what you look like now. Someone is going to call the Shinsengumi and you're gonna get this place blown up."

"That's the problem with today," Katsura said softly.

"What is?" Gin asked.

"The Shinsengumi are busy today with that pop star. They're pulling security for her. All their firepower is directed at the mobs of enthusiastic fans and not at me. I didn't get attacked once, threw my whole day off."

"You need a life, Zura."

"Not Zura, it's _Katsura_!"

"Anyway," Gin continued, "that's sad. You don't get attacked for a day and you end up wallowing in the bottom of an empty glass in some back ally bar? You've been acting weird since you came back from the dead, what's going on with you?"

"Nothing new…"

Gin rolled his eyes."You're too young to be that miserable. You need some real friends."

"I have friends. You're my friend."

Gin turned to rest his elbow on the bar. He pulled the disinterested look over his face to try and hide the blush that threatened to show itself.

Katsura studied his empty glass. "You're the one who needs friends… well, friends your age, I mean. You need a nice woman in your life."

Gin snickered at how ridiculous that sounded, considering the person it was coming from.

"You should talk, Zura. When was the last time you were with a woman?"

"I practically live with a woman," Katsura said.

Gin rolled his eyes again. "You hide out in the back of some chick's restaurant."

"I'm happily irenting out/i that broom closet I occasionally hide in, thank you very much."

Gin waved the bartender away when he came over to see if Gin wanted anything.

"That's a good thing, considering you get her place blown up at least once a week."

Katsura smiled. "She enjoys it. Makes her feel like part of the action."

Gin shook his head. "Women are a mystery."

Katsura lifted his glass as if to toast. "To be a winner, you got to be in the game, Gintoki."

Oh, great. Now Katsura wasn't making any sense. He hated it when Katsura was drunk.

"I'm in the game," Gin said defensively.

Katsura set his glass down and shook his head.

"No," he sighed. "You're standing on the field alone. That's not in the game."

"Field? What game am I playing?"

"Soccer."

Holy shit, he was so drunk.

"You shouldn't worry about me," Gin muttered. "I have women beating down my door."

"Your landlady and cat burglar neighbor don't count. Neither do those women who come to your door in pairs wanting to tell you about Jesus."

Gin couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"There's nothing wrong with that. They want to save my soul."

Katsura made a face and sat up straighter. "You're going to end up like Kenji."

Gin blinked. Maybe he was the one that was drunk and didn't know it. He couldn't follow this conversation at all.

"Who's Kenji?"

"A friend of mine," Katsura stated. "He got his testicles cut off."

Gin blinked again. "Who cut them off?"

"Some doctors."

"Remind me to never go to the doctor ever again." Gin hunched in on himself.

Katsura looked at him deadpan. "Kenji had cancer. Anyway, the point is, he can never have kids."

"What's so great about kids?" Gin asked.

Katsura turned on his stool to face Gin fully. He looked so tired, so worn. His usually vibrant skin was dull and more pale than usual. His thick hair hung without its usual luster. His face was a mask of exhaustion depression.

"That's what it's all about, Gintoki. A loving wife, kids, a home that's your home and not a broom closet…"

"I hate you when you're drunk," Gin mumbled.

"Oh?" Katsura smiled then. "You like me when I'm sober then?"

"No, not particularly."

"I'm gonna set you up with a nice girl, Gintoki."

"Don't bother," Gin said as he stretched. "Tomorrow I'm getting my testicles cut off."

"Save them, have them bronzed. It'll be a great conversation starter when you bring her home."

"Speaking of home," Gin said as he stood. "I'm taking you there now."

Katsura stood with Gin's help and let the larger man lead him toward the door. "But I don't have a home. I hide in a broom closet."

Gin sighed. "Then I'll take you home with me. There's already one delinquent plus a monster dog living with me, who's gonna notice a terrorist?"

As his arm was slung over Gin's shoulder, Katsura sighed like his friend was a particularly slow child. "Don't act like you don't care about your little friends, Gintoki."

"I never said I didn't care about them," Gin replied. "I just said they were delinquents. You can love delinquents."

There were several long moments of silence as the two made their way down the dark street before Katsura replied.

"Yes… yes you can…"

Opening the door to his place, Gin pulled an almost unconscious Katsura over the threshold and pulled off his waraji. His own boots were kicked off somewhere between the door and the living room.

"Damnit," Gin said softly, seeing that Sadaharu had made himself comfortable on one couch, and the other was sporting a large wet spot.

_Please, please don't let that be dog piss_.

Making a quick decision, he pulled Katsura into his own bedroom, planning on letting his friend sleep here and he would either clean off the other couch for himself, or somehow get the giant monster dog to move.

Gin closed his bedroom door behind him and tried to help Katsura out of his haori. His face heated when the other man wrapped an arm around his neck to stay upright. Pulling off the outer layers of his friend's clothes, Gin tried to think of naked old women in snow storms to keep his libido in check.

An incredibly vivid picture of Ms. Otose in a thong, made Gin stumble. His feet got caught with Katsura's and the two of them went cashing down onto the futon. Gin twisted at the last second, putting himself between his friend and the direct impact of the fall. This resulted in a flustered Gintoki pinned underneath an almost completely unconscious Katsura.

Gin closed his eyes and tried not to think about how good Katsura's hair smelled, or how wonderful the smaller man's body felt on top of his.

"Oi, Zura," Gin choked out, "get off."

Katsura groaned and snuggled closer into the crook between Gin's shoulder and neck. "You're comfortable," he said groggily. "Stay here with me."

Gin clenched his jaw so hard it hurt. This was _so_ not happening. Drunk, half-clothed Katsura spread out all over him, his hair thick and sweet-smelling, his skin soft, and his perfectly toned body all pressed against—_Gods Damnit!!_

Gin shifted his hand to Katsura's shoulder, planning on shoving his soon-to-be-dead-friend off of him. His fingers had just found purchase when the dark-haired man's arms slid around his neck and the quietest of sighs escaped Katsura's lips.

"Please, Gintoki…" Katsura whispered so quietly, Gin almost didn't hear him. The silver-haired man froze and listened with his breath caught in his chest and his cock hardening against his friend's leg.

"Please stay here with me…"

What's a man supposed to do? The object of his most erotic dreams was clinging to him and asking—well, actually it was more like begging—for him to stay. Gin felt Katsura's breath slow and even dance across the skin of his neck, his friend's heartbeat calm and steady against his chest.

Didn't this kind of stuff only happen in Shojo manga? This couldn't be real. And what the hell was going to happen when Katsura woke up in the morning? After he threw up and they dealt with the splitting headache his friend was no doubt going to be sporting, Katsura was probably going to tie him up with duct tape shove one of those metal grenades up Gin's ass.

Gin slowly removed his hand from Katsura's shoulder and reached up to run his hands over the thick, black hair. It slipped like spun silk though his fingers.

Well, it could be worth it…

The silver-haired samurai rolled them gently to the side and slid one arm over Katsura's hip. The smaller man sighed softly and curled up against Gin's chest.

Yeah, Gin thought to himself, definitely worth it.

**TBC **


End file.
